Should animals have the same rights as humans? The National Geographic show Inside Base Camp presents the controversial proposition of animal rights. Guest include professor Steven Wise, the author of Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights.

From Wikipedia: Wise’s position on animal rights is that some animals, particularly primates, meet the criteria of legal personhood, and should therefore be awarded certain rights and protections. His criteria for personhood are that the animal must be able to desire things, to act in an intentional manner to acquire those things, and must have a sense of self i.e. the animals must know that s/he exists. Wise argues that chimpanzees, bonobos, elephants, parrots, dolphins, orangutans, and gorillas meet these criteria.

Wise argues that these animals should have legal personhood bestowed upon them to protect them from “serious infringements upon their bodily integrity and bodily liberty.” Without personhood in law, he writes, one is “invisible to civil law” and “might as well be dead.”